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Hopefully by now you’ve heard me mention The Suicide Doors. And hopefully by now, you know it’s an EP of original music with a few tracks that I’ve produced. Before I go any further, let me (or Wikipedia) explain what an EP is: An extended play (or EP) is a musical recording that contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full studio album.

Now that we have gotten that out-of-the-way, let me explain what The Suicide Doors are and how they came to be. The last three years DJ Stylez and I have been putting out a DJ mixtape together as a promotional tool to give our fans, friends & clients. After the success of last summer’s H2electrO mixtape, I wanted to do something different this summer.

Immediately after our H2electrO release party, I started talking to DJ Stylez about what I wanted to follow it up with this summer, and that was release originally produced music. I had recently started learning how to produce and Stylez was already making beats and remixes under the name, DaCapo. So, in August 2011 DJ Stylez and I decided we would release an EP of originally produced music in August of 2012.

The Suicide Doors name is something I had thought of a few years ago and knew it would make for a cool band name. So not only did I decide to make it the name of our EP, but also make it the name of my production team/group/band. The Suicide Doors production team consists of DJs, Musicians, Producers, Singer/Songwriters and a Sound Engineer and we plan on performing as The Suicide Doors, whether it’s as a DJ set or as a Band. More info on that coming soon.

In the meantime, we are going to be promoting the EP as we have some really cool things that will be accompanying its release. (updated Oct 24, 2012) You head the full EP below and expect to start hearing a lot more about The Suicide Doors.

Made it back to the States in time to celebrate Christmas. Since I’ve been back, I’ve had some down time and it’s given me the opportunity to reflect on my trip to Qatar. Spending 14 days in the Middle East was a priceless experience. I got to meet and hang out with people from Jordan, Egypt, India, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Australia and Qatar (obviously). The best part of my trip was being able to have real conversations with people from that region of the world. Everyone I spoke with was so kind and more than willing to answer all of my questions. I definitely have an even greater respect for the beliefs, issues and lifestyle from that part of the World.I took tons of photos and got some from the people I worked with. If you’d like to see them, you can view them HERE.
There are photos of downtown Doha, the Aquatic Center where I spent most of my time, the other sporting venues around the Aquatic Center, the National Day celebration (besides meeting the locals, walking through downtown during this celebration was my favorite part of the trip), a local market, the dunes and yes, Go Karting photos.

Two things that I didn’t get to accomplish on my trip were to see the sand dunes and ride a camel. The dunes and camel rides were about an hour outside of where I was staying and I never had time to make it out there (guess that means I’ll just have to go back). People I worked with were able to and I was able to share that experience through their photos. Other than that, I have no complaints about my trip.

The swimming competition, which was why I was in Doha (I served as the Music Director for the Swimming Venue), lasted 6 days and consisted of two sessions per day. The morning heats was where the athletes competed to make it to the finals in the evening. You had to finish in the top 8 to make it to the finals and each night we had about 6 events and 6 medal ceremonies. Oussama Mellouli, an Olympic Gold Medalist in 2008 in the 1500m freestyle, from Tunisia, dominated the Arab Games with 15 Gold Medals and 1 silver. He won every event he entered, except for two, and the Tunisian fans came out in force to support him (and the other athletes now that I think about it).

Now that my time in the Middle East is over, it’s time for me to focus on my New Year’s Eve event in Santa Barbara where I will be rocking the roof top of the Canary Hotel and get ready for the Los Angeles Clippers upcoming season. Happy to be back for my 8th season with the Clippers.

About a day and half left on my trip here in Doha, Qatar as the music director at the Aquatic Center for the 2011 Arab Games and it’s been an amazing experience.

The timing of these games just happened to coincide with Qatar’s National Day and the best way I can explain how they celebrate National Day here is take our Independence Day, New Year’s Eve and Mardi Gras (minus the boobs) celebrations and combine them. Everyone basically piles into their cars and drives downtown just to cruise the streets causing a huge traffic jam which then turns into a MASSIVE celebration. As you can see from the photo below, people are literally driving with people on their cars and hanging out the sun/moon roofs.I would also like to point out that this is a “dry” country. Not only temperature, but also no alcohol or drugs. So, everyone is acting a fool dead sober and they are having a fabulous time. Another thing they like to do while cruising the streets of downtown is rev their cars engines long enough to make them backfire. (You can video of this on my Facebook page. Check end of video to hear the car engine)
The night of National Day we ended up getting out of our shuttle that was bringing us back to the hotel and walking for about 45 minutes. If we would have stayed in the shuttle, it would have taken hours, normally a 25 minute ride. So we walked through the celebration and it was absolutely amazing to watch. Everyone was happy, celebrating and wanting us to take photos of them. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. AMAZING.

After being in Doha for almost 7 days, the swimming competition has finally begun. However, the first session lasted 25 minutes and then we had a 6 hour break until the night session began. So, it was a very mellow dramatic start to our events, but the rest of the sessions should last longer and bring more excitement. We have 22 countries competing in swimming with the morning sessions consisting of the preliminary heats with the evening sessions being all finals and medal ceremonies. We will have a few hour break between sessions each day, hopefully no more 6 hour breaks and there just happens to be a HUGE mall next door to our venue. I’ve been told that they have GoKarts on the upper level that go up to 72 KPH (about 45 MPH). Needless to say, I will be partaking in some GoKarting while I’m here. Photos of that coming for sure.

I’ve only been in Qatar for 2 1/2 days, but it feels like I’ve been away from home for longer. I think the 20 plus hour flight and 11 hour time difference from LA has been a little confusing on my mind and body. However, I haven’t been suffering from jet lag too bad. Have had to force myself to stay up past 10pm every night, but I feel like I’m adjusting well. Drinking A LOT of water, which I’m told helps.
Other than my hotel, I’ve only been to the aquatic center where I will be spending a lot of quality time. The aquatic center is amazing and the outside of it looks like a ship, port holes and everything (I’ll get a better photo of it soon).

Haven’t had a chance to really experience Doha, but it feels like a fairly westernized country. Downtown Doha could be any city in the United States and I’m staying at a Marriott, so most of the time I haven’t felt like I’m in the Middle East. I plan on venturing outside of my hotel for dinner tonight, so I hope to get a better feel for the culture here.

The reason I’m in Qatar is for the 2011 Doha Arab Games to serve as the Music Director at the Aquatic Center. So, this week will be filled up with meetings and rehearsals for the swimming competition which begins on Saturday. Once competition starts, I’ll basically be living at the aquatic center. There is morning and evening sessions with a 3-4 hour break in the middle of the day. The hotel and aquatic center are about 30-45 minutes apart, depending on traffic, so not sure if I’ll be able to come back to the hotel between the sessions. I plan on making sure I have free time before Saturday to get all of my Doha, Qatar experiences in.
Until the next post….

I should have titled this “Day 1 & Day 2 Doha, Qatar (travel day recap)” as I left Los Angeles at 9:45am on a Friday and landed in Doha, Qatar at 5:00pm Saturday. I flew Emirates Airlines today, economy, and was very happy with the accommodations on the Boeing 777-300ER (Extended Range). I was a little surprised that it didn’t have WiFi, but I was able to live without being online for almost 24 hours. It was a full flight except for a few seats and I lucked out that in my 3 seat row, there was no one in the middle seat and I was at the window. There was a nice older Indian lady sitting in the aisle seat who proceeded to get my attention every time she wanted to change the channel on her TV, mind you, she was Hindi speaking and I didn’t understand a single word she said. Again, she was very nice and appreciative every time I assisted her. She did however know how to say “thank you” in English, as she kept saying that after she switched to the middle seat, put her legs up on the aisle seat, put her neck pillow on and leaned back onto my left shoulder. It took me a moment to realize that she was “thanking” me for allowing her to use the left side of my body as her rest wall. Now I’m a nice guy, buuuuttttt, I could not allow this. Other than that, my flights were uneventful and after being on a two different planes for a total of around 20 hours, I’m finally at my hotel in Doha and ready to get to work tomorrow.
Hope my stories are interesting. More to come on my adventure in Qatar.

(View from my hotel room. The construction next door, I’ve been told, is going to be the tallest building in the world)

To celebrate the release of our latest collaboration, H2electrO, DJ Stylez and I threw the pool party event of the summer with some help from VALA Entertainment & VALA Events. A good friend of ours was kind enough to lend us his backyard that had an amazing view of Orange Country, which was a little far for some to drive, but was a perfect location for this event.

We estimated 60-70 people came through our event that consisted of a Taco Cart, Open Bar, Floating Beer Pong and obviously good music. The event started off with an opening DJ set by Wolfeman that contained the Love Boat Theme, quotes from Dazed and Confused and the Rubber Duckie song. Because it’s not a pool party without a rubber duck.

DJ Arnold Lara got on the decks next and set the crowd up perfectly for DJ Stylez and I to perform the H2electrO mix live. Stylez and I rocked our set, then, as promised, immediately entered the pool front flip and elbow drop style (see all photos from the event HERE). After that, we all just hung out in the pool, at the bar or in the hot tub. It was just a bunch of good people having a good time, so let’s do it again next year!

Special thanks to Dan Bowman for the doing the album artwork and of course thanks to everyone who’s download our mix, made it to the pool party and has supported me and my fellow DJs over the years. I promise to keep putting out good music for you.